Alan Stewart’s UK and Ireland family history news

Perthshire tax/valuation records go online

Tax/valuation records for the historic Scottish county of Perthshire from the mid-17th century to the end of the 19th century are now online.

For people like me who have ancestors who lived in Perthshire (both north and south in my case), the good news is that Ancestry.co.uk has just made 350 years of cess, stent and valuation rolls available online.

Ancestry says: “The valuation rolls (which run from 1885-1988) contain more information than the cess or stent rolls, which recorded just the tax portion of the valuation, while the valuation rolls deal solely with the value of the property.

“The valuation rolls name the proprietor or tenant, describe or name the property and give an annual rental value. The rolls do have some peculiarities, though. Until 1884, tenants or occupiers with a lease less than one year or value of less than £4 per annum were omitted. Street naming and numbering also didn’t come into prevalence until 1930, which makes it difficult to identify some properties.

The valuation rolls contain:

Parish

Year

Proprietor

Tenant

Description of property

Yearly rent or value

The National Records of Scotland intends to put certain valuation rolls for the whole of Scotland online at the ScotlandsPeople website later this year.